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Thursday, October 17, 2013

Haunted Houses, Courtesy of Flannel Friday

I'm planning a Halloween Preschool Storytime. Two years ago, I did a Halloween Family Storytime. (Last year we did a Monster Family Storytime in October.) I wanted to do another family program but due to a bump in my personal life, it was not to be. However, since our regular preschool storytime takes place on the 31st, I will be doing that program instead. Since I don't want to repeat everything that I did before (at least one of my family storytime regulars will be attending), I decided to look for some new ideas. Of course the first place I went to was the Flannel Friday Halloween Pinterest board.

I found several haunted house props. Amanda of Trails & Tails created an amazing haunted house play mat with removable finger puppets. It goes with her "Jack Lantern, Jack Lantern, What Do You See?" rhyme. Sarah of Read, Sarah, Read made a great haunted house to go with Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O'Connell. She also added a rhyme, "Five Little Ghosts" that could be adapted for use with the haunted house. Andrea of RovingFiddlehead KidLit has a simple but very effective haunted house for the song, "The Haunted House."Another haunted house prop has also been added to the Halloween board from this year's Halloween Round-Up. Sarah inspired Lisa of Thrive After Three to create her fantastic haunted house for Ten Timid Ghosts.

Since our story room is quite small, I did not need a large prop. I decided to go with the "Five Little Ghosts" rhyme found on Sarah's blog. Of course I adapted the rhyme to suit the characters I wanted to use. I drew my own figures. For me it was quicker than trying to size clip art to fit the "windows." I did use clip art for inspiration.

The haunted house is made from orange card stock. The roof and chimney are made from construction paper. I used leftover laminating film to cover the windows. I made pockets by taping a piece of card stock to the back of each window to hold the figures.

The figures are glued onto card stock pieces that fit in the pockets with a ghost on one side and the one who chases it away on the other side. As I say the rhyme, I simply turn the piece to the other side and return it to the pocket. At the end, the piece is turned again to have the ghosts return. I numbered and labeled the pockets so that I would have the figures in the correct order for the rhyme.

This is my adaptation of the rhyme:

"Five Little Ghosts"﻿

Five little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a witch who chased one ghost away.
Four little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a monster who chased one ghost away.
Three little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a vampire who chased one ghost away.
Two little ghosts in a haunted house at play,
Along came a mummy who chased one ghost away.
One little ghost in a haunted house at play,
Along came a bat who chased that ghost away.
Let's find the ghosts and say:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ghosts come back and play!